-------and with a whimsical stare from the bird the moth drops to the ground. It did not bother to retrieve the moth as they prefer to chase live, flying prey and off it went in pursuit of the next meal. The best defense for insects is the land and stay still.

A photographic essay of a colony of Chestnut-headed bee-eaters.

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.....the toss is a bit astray and the moth starts to fall out of reach

-------and with a whimsical stare from the bird the moth drops to the ground. It did not bother to retrieve the moth as they prefer to chase live, flying prey and off it went in pursuit of the next meal. The best defense for insects is the land and stay still.

Bee-eaters clearly eat a lot of insects and exoskeleton of most insect is made up of the tough protein chitin. The bee-eaters cannot digest some of these proteins and every so often will regurgitate a pellet of undigestible insect parts.

Chitin definition; a nitrogen-containing polysaccharide, related chemically to cellulose, that forms a semitransparent horny substance and is a principal constituent of the exoskeleton, or outer covering, of insects, crustaceans, and arachnids.

At this time the bee-eaters spend considerable time underground where they get dirty and are susceptible to parasites. They spend some times preening and stretching wings and tails.

-------and with a whimsical stare from the bird the moth drops to the ground. It did not bother to retrieve the moth as they prefer to chase live, flying prey and off it went in pursuit of the next meal. The best defense for insects is the land and stay still.

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